NIS Server

The Network Information System (NIS) is a naming service that offers a way of identifying and locating users and resources on the network.

The NIS server provided with the Sun Directory Services overcomes some of the limitations of a classic NIS naming service, namely:

• A legacy NIS server propagates whole tables, not just updates

• A legacy NIS server cannot handle very large tables, that is tables that hold over 50,000 to 60,000 entries

The NIS server component of the Sun Directory Services can replace an existing NIS server to integrate easily into an existing NIS network. This is done by transferring the information stored in NIS tables on the NIS server into the LDAP directory database. This avoids duplication of user and host information in several databases.

All the information held in NIS tables is mapped onto LDAP object classes and attributes. This mapping can be configured for a particular environment.

The NIS server function of the Sun Directory Services is performed by the dsservd daemon. This component responds to NIS requests from user applications. For example, during an rlogin operation, it converts the hostname to the IP address of the remote machine.

As in the standard NIS environment, users can change their password using the passwd command.

The dsservd daemon can act as an NIS master or an NIS slave. As a master, it propagates NIS tables to a slave NIS server. As a slave, it receives propagation requests from a NIS server.

Replication between an LDAP/NIS server and a legacy NIS server is performed using the dsypxfrd daemon. For details on how NIS replication is performed by Sun Directory Services, see "Propagating NIS Tables".

Chapter 6, Using the Directory as an NIS Server explains how to integrate the Sun Directory Services into an existing NIS network, and describes the NIS-to-LDAP information mapping.